


won't you say you love me later

by Reydar



Category: Warrior Nun (TV)
Genre: F/F, Missing Scene, did somebody say MUTUAL PINING????, training at Arq Tech
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-02
Updated: 2020-08-02
Packaged: 2021-03-05 20:54:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,559
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25671661
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Reydar/pseuds/Reydar
Summary: They both know what “different” is a euphemism for, but Ava isn’t going to force her to say it out loud if she’s not ready. There are a few things Ava isn’t ready to say out loud either.~~A missing scene at Arq Tech while Ava trains and Beatrice deals with what she thinks are unrequited feelings.
Relationships: Sister Beatrice/Ava Silva
Comments: 17
Kudos: 367





	won't you say you love me later

**Author's Note:**

> Title is a lyric from the song By and By by Caamp.
> 
> Also I binged this whole series in a day so don't come for me with Specifics I do not care lol. We are here to yearn and that's IT.

The concrete wall feels cool against the skin of Ava’s forehead, doing its best to counteract the red hot anger that’s coursing through her body. She’s been staring at this twenty foot long slab of rock for almost an hour and she still can’t bring herself to suck it up and try to phase through. Every time she thinks she’s steeled up her nerves, the image of her body getting stuck somewhere in the middle flashes on the inside of her eyelids and makes her hesitate. In a moment of pure terror, she pictures the rest of the sisters waking up in the morning, wondering where she is before they guess what happened and realize they’re going to have to use a pickaxe to mine her corpse from the concrete.

“Fuck!” Ava pounds her fist against the cold slab, right next to where her forehead presses against it, except it doesn’t hurt enough, so she does it again. And again. Harder and harder, just to give her brain something else to focus on. Maybe she could just punch her way through the wall. Then she wouldn’t have to deal with being so afraid.

“Ava?” The quiet voice breaks through whatever chaos is clouding Ava’s mind and she brings her fist to a stop in midair. She leans away from the wall and turns to see someone approaching from her left, although it’s too dark to see who, since it’s late and she had only turned on a single table lamp in the back of the room.

“Are you okay?” the voice says, louder this time, and close enough now that Ava can tell it’s Beatrice who has come for her.

It’s not the first time Ava has seen Beatrice with her hair down, but it takes her breath away all the same. She looks so… casual, standing there barefoot in the low-lit room at 2 a.m. in a simple t-shirt and pants, rubbing the sleep out of her eyes. For some reason seeing Beatrice like this makes Ava feel worse. Aren’t they all too young to be in charge of saving the world?

“Your hand,” Beatrice says, even though Ava still hasn’t said a word. She points to Ava’s right hand, limp and bloodied at her side but healing quickly.

“Oh,” Ava holds her hand up to stop the blood from getting on the floor, but a few drops manage to escape, splashing on the white tile before the Halo heals her completely. “Um,” she looks at the smeared bloodstain on the concrete and back to Beatrice. “Just, you know… making sure it’s still solid and everything.” After a few seconds of uncomfortable silence she pats the wall and adds, “It is.” Ava brings the edge of her shirt up to wipe the blood off her hand. “You’re up late.”

“Bad dream woke me up and I saw your cot was empty. I had a feeling you’d be in here,” Beatrice answers.

“Bad dream? What about?”

Beatrice hesitates just long enough for Ava to know she’s lying when she says, “I don’t remember, it faded as soon as I woke up.” Beatrice takes a few steps forward and some instinct in Ava’s brain tells her to take a step back but she doesn’t, she lets her come closer. Beatrice reaches her hand out to touch the corner of the concrete wall. “Any luck?”

Ava’s eyes find the floor. “No. I uh, I was too scared to try it by myself,” she admits, a little surprised at herself for being so honest.

“I would be too,” Beatrice says, still looking at the wall.

For a second Ava doesn’t really know what to say, then suddenly the weight of her circumstances falls on her like a ton of bricks. She glances back up at the bloodstained wall and feels that same red hot anger bubble up in her again as her hands clench into white-knuckled fists. It feels like every muscle in her body tenses at the same time until she almost yells, “We don’t have time for me to keep fucking this up!” and before she can stop herself, she flings her fist at the wall again, but this time it phases through, and she’s so surprised that she loses control and gets stuck in the cold cement.

Beatrice’s eyes widen and the look of panic on her face only makes Ava’s breathing more erratic. She pulls helplessly a few times, her heat beating so fiercely she can feel it in her ears. Eventually her senses come back to her and she closes her eyes to focus.

Inhale.

Exhale.

She pulls her fist out of the wall. The energy in Ava’s body leaves her as quickly as it came, and she slumps forward with a sigh, pressing her forehead against the center of the wall once more before turning around and sliding down into a sitting position. Her shorts don’t do much to protect her legs from the freezing floor but she doesn’t mind. It keeps her present.

Beatrice sits down next to her. They’re quiet for a minute or two, leaning back against the biggest obstacle in their path to saving the world. The table lamp in the far left corner casts odd shadows around the room, making it feel a little smaller than it is. Ava studies her right hand, completely spotless thanks to the Halo. She runs the pad of a fingertip down the side of her hand from the tip of her pinky down to her wrist.

“I wish it wasn’t me,” Ava says after a while. She feels Beatrice turn to look at her but she doesn’t return the gaze.

A few seconds pass before Beatrice says, “I know how you feel.” That gets Ava to finally look over but when she does Beatrice’s eyes fall to her hands in her lap. “Not exactly, of course. But—” she lets out a frustrated exhale through her nose, seemingly unsure of how to put her thoughts into words.

“When I was younger, I started to suspect that I wasn’t the same as most of the girls I knew. I thought about things they didn’t think about. I wanted… things they didn’t want.”

Ava listens patiently, letting Beatrice’s gentle voice seep into her tired bones.

“When my parents found out and reacted the way they did, I wished more than anything that I could change. That somebody else could be me so I wouldn’t have to deal with being different.”

They both know what “different” is a euphemism for, but Ava isn’t going to force her to say it out loud if she’s not ready. She sneaks a glance and sees Beatrice’s unfocused stare. She watches Beatrice pinch her fingertips, one after the other, absentmindedly but with a pattern that feels practiced. Ava’s chest fills with that familiar fondness that always seems to accompany Beatrice’s presence. There are a few things Ava isn’t ready to say out loud either.

“I know it’s not the same. And I know that you’re facing much higher stakes than I ever did.”

“Being rejected by your family seems like pretty high stakes to me,” Ava interrupts, “You’re a lot stronger than you give yourself credit for.”

Their eyes meet for only a moment. Beatrice tucks her hair behind her ear and tries to hide a grateful smile.

“All of this is to say that neither of us chose to be this way, and that can be terrifying. But I think—” Beatrice pauses, takes a deep breath and lets it out, as if she’s psyching herself up to do something dangerous. “I think there’s a certain comfort in knowing there’s some things you can’t change, no matter how hard you try.”

“How is that comforting?”

“Because it gives us only one option. Keep moving forward.”

Ava smiles at that, the fondness in her chest growing brighter. She leans ever so slightly toward Beatrice, just enough so that their shoulders touch, and she stays there.

“Yeah. Keep moving forward.”

~~

“Are you sure you want to do this now? It’s the middle of the night and you’ve never tried the full twenty feet before,” Beatrice says. They’re standing now, facing the giant hunk of concrete in the middle of the room.

“Yes I am aware of both of those things, but you said it yourself right? Keep moving forward,” Ava says. “Besides, we don’t have time for me to keep putting this off. I’m our only chance.”

Beatrice can’t say anything to the contrary, so she stays silent. She watches Ava take a breath and let it out slowly as she studies the wall in front of them. The nervous energy emanating from her is almost tangible. Beatrice places a tentative hand on Ava’s shoulder and waits until she looks at her.

“I’ll only be twenty feet away,” she says, and hopes it’s even a little bit comforting.

“I know,” is all she gets in response. Beatrice tries desperately to read something, anything more in the look in Ava’s eyes, but she can’t. So she simply nods, and moves to the other end of the wall. Once she’s in position, she hears Ava’s voice from the other side of the room.

“Um, count me down?” she asks.

“Okay,” Beatrice agrees, “Three… two… one.” She hears the faint, indescribable warping sound of Ava phasing into the wall, and then silence.

She counts the seconds in her head, but her nerves get the better of her and she loses track of time. In a gut-wrenching case of déjà-vu, her bad dream comes back to her.

She and Ava were standing in front of what she assumed to be the entrance to Adriel’s tomb. It was so dark that the only things they could see were each other and the wall in front of them, a wall that didn’t look too different from the one she is standing in front of now. In the dream, right before Ava phased into the stone, Beatrice had grabbed her face and kissed her. Right after that, Ava went forward into Adriel’s tomb and never came out. She waited in the darkness for what felt like days, until everything around her started shaking and the ceiling collapsed on top of her. Beatrice honestly doesn’t know which part of the dream scared her the most.

As she stands alone in the dimly lit room in Arq Tech, she can’t help but feel exactly like she did in her dream. Her lungs turn to lead and her eyes go unfocused. She clenches her hand into a fist so tight that her fingernails threaten to break skin. Ava’s going to make it. She has to. Any second now she’s going to come out the other side and Beatrice is going to feel stupid for worrying.

But the seconds pass, and nothing happens.

The silence in the room gains more weight, and Beatrice feels like it might crush her. She finds a strand of loose hair and wraps it around her pointer finger, a nervous tick she is usually able to avoid by wearing her habit. She pulls the hair so tight it starts to turn her fingertip purple, and just when she thinks she might pass out from worry, she hears that faint warping sound.

“Beatrice! Help me!” she hears Ava coming from the long side of the wall, and Beatrice is so happy to hear her voice she doesn’t even care that Ava bailed halfway through. She bolts around the corner of the concrete slab and for a second, cannot comprehend the image in front of her.

Ava is there, but not all of her. She’s facing the wall and standing at a strange angle… Oh, not standing. Both her legs are stuck in the cement, all the way up to her knees, and she’s struggling to hold herself up.

“Help me!” she screams again, and Beatrice shakes herself out of her confusion and runs to her. She supports Ava from behind, at first just holding her hands against her back and pushing her up toward the wall, then closing the distance and wrapping her arms around Ava’s stomach so she can lean into her.

“I’ve got you,” she says, loud enough so that Ava can hear her over her own panic. Some time later, as she feels Ava’s breathing start to slow down, she says it again, quieter. “I’ve got you.”

Their cheeks are millimeters apart as Beatrice holds her. She’s grateful that Ava can’t see her blush, but she’s afraid she’ll be able to feel the heat from her face. For a moment she thinks she may have taken it too far, until she feels Ava’s arms cover hers, feels her hands grab onto her wrists.

“Can you get out?” Beatrice almost whispers. Every place where Ava’s skin is touching her own feels both hyper-sensitive and numb at the same time.

Ava focuses for a few seconds, then erupts in another bout of panicked breathing. Her grip on Beatrice’s wrists turns vice-like. “N-no, I’m stuck. I can’t—I can’t—I—”

“It’s okay,” Beatrice interrupts. “It’s okay it’s just temporary. You probably need time to recharge. Try to breathe.”

The seconds drag on once again, and Beatrice is still scared, but this time for completely different reasons. Ava’s hands slowly loosen on Beatrice’s wrists, and for a moment she seems completely calm. Before long though, Beatrice can feel her body start to tremble.

“What if I can’t do it?” Ava says with a voice that lets Beatrice know she’s crying.

“This was just a first attempt, all you need is practice.”

That seems to make it worse, somehow. Ava starts shaking harder and Beatrice doesn’t know what to say, so she inches forward and adjusts her grip, holding Ava even tighter. She is about to place a kiss on her cheek but stops herself just in time, disguising the movement by saying softly, “I’m right here. I’m not going anywhere.”

She can’t help the frustration that boils up in her stomach, but she _can_ feel guilty about it. This isn’t about her feelings, it’s about Ava. And what Ava needs right now is a friend. Just a friend, and nothing more. Right? Beatrice closes her eyes and breathes deeply. She tries to focus on what Ava needs, but what Beatrice _wants_ is so much louder.

A few more minutes of pure self-control pass before Beatrice feels Ava’s weight shift in her arms. She opens her eyes and sees Ava’s bare feet planted firmly on the ground. For a moment too long, neither of them move. They just stand there holding each other, breathing in sync, until Beatrice finally gains control of herself and takes a step back, pretending not to notice Ava’s lingering touch as she pulls her arms away.

Ava takes a shaky breath and turns around to face her. “Thank you. For being there,” she says.

Beatrice can hardly look her in the eye. “Of course,” she says, then after a few seconds, “we should try to get some sleep.”

“Yeah, I’m right behind you,” Ava says.

Beatrice turns to leave, and when she’s out of the room and around the corner, Ava places her arms around her stomach where the ghost of Beatrice’s touch lingers. She sighs.

There are too many things they aren’t ready to say out loud.


End file.
